Mr. Breakfast's Chicago challenge

Alan Barrett is on a mission to eat at a different breakfast spot every Saturday. Now he needs help. Got any suggestions?

September 11, 2008|By Christopher Borrelli, TRIBUNE REPORTER

Chicago, Alan Barrett.

Alan Barrett -- we think you know Chicago. You lived most of your life around here. We just thought it was time we formally introduced you two: Alan is a single white male with a longtime girlfriend. He lives alone in an apartment near Belmont and Broadway. He is ruddy-cheeked, with a vague resemblance to Howdy Doody as a middle-aged Midwesterner. He wears a black ventilated Yankees cap with a flat brim. He's the kind of genial guy who makes jokes with a straight face and dancing eyes. That said, appearances aside, Alan Barrett is a man on edge, a soul in crisis.

A while back he contacted us. He was seeking help. His problem was this: For nearly 10 years now he has attempted to eat breakfast in a different Chicago restaurant every Saturday morning. He considers it a hobby. But he has not succeeded.

Not by a long shot.

If Alan had succeeded in his initial plan, between 1999 (when his odyssey began) and 2008 (when desperation led to our door), he would have eaten in 468 breakfast spots across Chicago. Instead, it's been dozens -- less than a hundred, certainly. He says this with disgust. When we met Alan and his friend Linda a few weeks ago (for breakfast, of course), he appeared deflated. He moaned that this intense crusade, as of late, seemed to be nearing its natural end. He groaned that he had been revisiting restaurants for cryin' out loud -- a few more than once! For weeks, he said, he's felt bereft of ideas. "Soon, I may even find myself eating breakfast in the suburbs!"

No one wants that.

"Certainly not! I don't want that!"

Chicago, dear God, won't you help?

Here, in At Play, we are doing our part. We have taken Alan under our wing. We sympathize with his plight. Alan Barrett, Everyman, salt of the earth, is hungry for new breakfast ideas -- new to him, at least. He enjoys the coziness of his weekend routine -- though he wants to keep it fresh. Of course, in the scheme of things, it is a minor concern -- not a planet-killing asteroid or a Brangelina birth. Alan is not particularly newsworthy. He offered to bite a dog to make his life more intriguing. And we do appreciate that, Alan. But it's that humble goal we relate to -- that constant longing for a clean, well-lighted breakfast place.

Alan awaits your suggestions. But first, perhaps we should get to know him better: Alan Barrett is 58 and works for a software firm in the Sears Tower. He is pleasant and optimistic and divorced. He moved to the city from Schaumburg when his daughter graduated college in the mid-'90s. Within minutes of meeting him at Hashbrowns (on Maxwell Street), we felt comfortable with Alan. We asked what he's learned since embarking on his project. He grabbed a fork, feeling its weight. "Let me tell you about forks."

"He has a thing about forks," Linda chimed in.

"I do," he said.

"You do," she said. "You have expectations you want met, as do we all."

"This is true," Alan said. One of those criteria (and please, consider Alan's dining preferences before offering your breakfast recommendations) is that the cutlery does not drive him insane: "I do not expect fine silverware. But -- OK, an example. Let me tell you about Meli Cafe & Juice Bar [on Halsted, in Greektown]. Nice place. They deliver on everything. They have 9 million organic juices. I've been there three times but will never go back. And why? Because in their effort to be cool they have instituted the worst fork in the history of civilization. It's modern and elegant, and the tables are so small that if you put it on the edge of your plate, it rolls off. This thing is unwieldy. Annoying as hell. The handle weighs 12 pounds. Seriously, 12 pounds! I expect a decent fork. On the way out I approached this guy. I said his forks were unacceptable. I don't know if he even spoke English. Maybe he didn't even work there, because he just looked at me. I said he should get rid of the forks. The guy didn't say anything. I said 'you guys do great breakfast but your forks are unacceptable, unbalanced' -- oh, I'll never go back. Not like I have to!"

Our new friend Alan talks about breakfast the way other people talk about religion. For example, the breakfast burrito. Before getting on an omelet jag recently, he ordered a breakfast burrito every week for years, in different restaurants, without variation, unable to resist. The way he talks about the breakfast burrito, the warmth in his voice as he explains its embracing nonjudgmental glow -- he's describing a higher power, an entity of infinite grace. "I mean, it's a breakfast burrito," he said. "Not a superconductor for God's sake! But I was stunned. Maybe I lead a sheltered life. I had never heard of the thing! To me that's the big innovation in breakfast, the best variation on scrambled eggs ever. The best is at The Hot Spot [on Armitage just west of California]. I discovered it when I was ticked off at the Melrose Restaurant [on Broadway] and searching for something and this burrito -- it just stunned me."